The Catholic Connection (Part Four of Five)

Joyce is likewise implicit about the hypocrisy of clerics. In Book Two of Portrait of the Artist, he comments on the desecration of the priest's office or of the vestry itself, whose silence was now routed by loud talk and joking and its air pungent with the smells of the gasjets and grease" (Joyce, 84). This image invokes a stain of sin upon the vestry. It alludes, moreover, to the covert worldliness of the priesthood. As in Otto e mezzo, emphasis is placed on the humanness and material nature of clerics. According to Stephen, "you could always tell a jesuit by the style of his clothes" (84).

In the same passage, Stephen perceives "a likeness between his father's mind and that of the smiling welldressed priest" (Joyce, 85). His association of these two father-figures underlies the similarity between family and faith. Both institutions, Stephen feels, are governed on the basis of hypocrisy. Just like the priest, who represents the Church and who is vain about his appearance, Stephen's father frets over the image his family projects to the community. In Book Two of Portrait, the father instructs his son to behave like a good and decent lad. He emphasizes that certain acts of mischief, such as drinking and petty theft, are permissible, providing that they are kept secret. Later on, the father boasts that he and his friends have enjoyed their share of pleasures while keeping their reputations intact. What is shown to be important, then, to this father and to men like him is the semblance of virtue, rather than virtue itself.

The parent is likewise exposed in Otto e Mezzo. Here, it is the mother who makes a show of superficial piety. "Oh, what a disgrace...what a terrible blow!" she cries upon hearing of Guido's romp with Saraghinia.

Her words and gestures -- overt moaning and sobbing -- suggest that she is a pious woman, overcome by the antics of her wayward son. This, presumably, is the image she wishes to present before the priests. She succeeds in appearing as one with them against Guido.

FIRST PRIEST: It's a mortal sin. It's a mortal sin.

376. LS: Guido standing, his eyes cast down.

STANDING PRIEST: ...your mother. Look at her.

GUIDO: Mother!

MOTHER: (gesticulating melodramatically, and in a tone of exaggerated despair): Oh heavens... She cries and sighs.

377. LS: Guido walks backward away from his Mother, right, then faces the principal's desk, genuflects, turns and walks into background...toward the priests who accompanied him...

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